史上最“有梗”世界杯背后 赛事营销正在迎来三个新变化

This article examines the communication characteristics of the most "meme-driven" World Cup in history and identifies three core shifts in modern sports event marketing. General readers will gain a clear understanding of new trends and popular tactics in contemporary sports marketing.

1. The core of marketing has shifted from backing the tournament champion to backing the "meme king". Younger audiences today reject traditional grand narratives and treat the World Cup as a nationwide emotional carnival. Fragmented, meme-driven topics attract a large number of casual viewers who do not follow football closely, lowering the barrier for public participation in football conversations.

2. Celebrity athlete endorsement has shifted from simply picking the right player to full-funnel social operations. Selecting an endorser based on name recognition and performance alone is no longer sufficient; brands need to pick athletes who are naturally meme-friendly and willing to interact with fans online, then pair this with a full set of social media operations to deliver strong results.

3. Marketing goals have shifted from one-off exposure to long-term audience accumulation. Today, brands prioritize turning public domain hot topics into long-term user assets for the brand, and integrated public-private domain operations are the most effective approach.

This article summarizes three fundamental shifts in World Cup event marketing under the new communication environment, providing clear direction and actionable practical cases for brands launching sports marketing campaigns.

1. Shift in marketing expression: Brands need to move away from self-indulgent grand narratives and toward meme-based interactions that align with younger audiences’ language, adopting a more relaxed, relatable, everyday approach. Backing a "meme king" athlete often delivers better results than backing the tournament champion, a dynamic proven by Wanglaoji’s partnership with Erling Haaland and Lay’s meme-driven marketing campaigns.

2. Shift in athlete operations: Brands need to move from one-off celebrity endorsements to full-funnel social operations. Picking a meme-friendly, naturally high-traffic athlete is only the first step; layered exposure in partnership with platforms turns meme creation from a random chance event into a predictable outcome. Wanglaoji’s partnership with Haaland, which generated nearly 5 billion impressions across all platforms, is a leading example.

3. Shift in traffic logic: Brands need to move from pure advertising exposure to long-term audience accumulation through integrated public-private domain operations. Leveraging the ecosystem of open social platforms allows brands to build a closed loop of viral growth in the public domain and user retention in the private domain, building long-term brand equity.

This paper aligns with the new communication shifts around World Cup marketing, outlines new trends and opportunities for sellers looking to drive growth through sports event marketing, and shares actionable tactics alongside risk warnings.

1. Current market shifts: Following the World Cup’s format adjustment, audience attention has become more fragmented. Combined with factors such as time zone differences, Chinese audiences’ core demand has shifted from passive viewing to active participation in social discussions. The casual fan base has become a non-negligible source of incremental traffic, opening up new space for sellers of all types to drive growth through trendjacking.

2. Actionable tactics: Sellers do not need to spend heavily to secure sponsorship rights for the champion team. By selecting meme points and athletes that resonate with young consumers and launching engaging meme-based interactions, sellers can secure substantial exposure. When selecting an athlete partner, sellers do not need to pursue only A-list names; meme-friendly athletes willing to interact offer higher cost-effectiveness, and can deliver strong results when paired with full-funnel social media operations.

3. Opportunities and risk warnings: Sellers should leverage the public-private domain integration capabilities of open social platforms to convert public domain hot topics into long-term user assets, and avoid the low conversion risk that comes with pure paid exposure.

The new event marketing trends summarized in this article provide multi-faceted insights and highlight new business opportunities for factories looking to expand their market and advance digital marketing.

1. Product development direction: Modern consumers increasingly prioritize the emotional value delivered by products. When developing co-branded or themed products tied to sports events, factories can align with young consumers’ love of social interaction and meme culture, emphasize fun in product design and conceptual packaging, and lower the barrier for casual consumers to participate—an approach that is far more likely to earn market acceptance.

2. Insights for digital marketing: Factories do not need to spend huge sums to sign A-list athlete endorsements and buy massive exposure. By shifting their mindset, selecting IP partnerships that align with audience preferences and pairing them with full-funnel operations on open social platforms, factories can achieve cross-circle viral reach at a far lower cost, with much better results than traditional marketing tactics.

3. Business opportunities: Major modern sports events have become nationwide social carnivals. Factories can leverage the timing of top-tier sports events to launch themed products, open up new sales channels through social trendjacking, and boost brand awareness.

Drawing on multiple marketing cases from this World Cup, this article outlines current development trends in the sports marketing industry, clarifies core pain points for brand clients, and maps out the direction for service providers’ growth.

1. New industry development trends: Event marketing has moved beyond the traditional model of buying exposure and portrait rights, and entered a new phase centered on meme interaction, full-funnel operations, and public-private domain integration. Brand demand for marketing services has shifted from single ad inventory provision to end-to-end in-depth support.

2. Core pain points for brand clients: Traditional marketing tactics deliver steadily declining results. Simply sponsoring the champion team or buying display ads rarely delivers cross-circle conversion, and meme-driven viral growth mostly relies on luck. It also remains difficult to convert public domain hot topics into long-term brand equity, leaving brands in urgent need of new, systematic solutions.

3. Growth direction for service providers: Service providers can build end-to-end full-funnel marketing managed services covering IP selection, creative planning, and promotion-to-conversion. Leveraging the ecosystem of open social platforms, providers can help brands turn meme-driven viral growth from a chance event into a replicable methodology, help brands achieve public-private domain integration, and build long-term user assets.

Drawing on the marketing performance of different platforms during this World Cup, this article summarizes core demands from both brands and users for social platforms, and maps out direction for platform operations, brand recruitment, and risk mitigation.

1. Current shifts in platform demand: Users need open public spaces to participate in event discussion and meme interactions, while brands need platforms that enable cross-circle viral growth and public-private domain traffic conversion, to solve the problems of information isolation and non-retainable traffic caused by algorithmic curation.

2. Proven successful platform tactics: Building an open discussion ecosystem and creating a complete closed loop of "niche content creation and secondary creation -> public domain viral growth and trending placement -> traffic backflow and niche retention" satisfies the needs of both users and brands. Weibo’s World Cup coverage, which generated 3,415 trending topics and 57.64 billion related reads, validates the effectiveness of this model.

3. Direction for platform operations: Platforms can launch full-funnel managed marketing services for major public events, providing end-to-end support for brands from IP selection to campaign execution, to attract brand ad spend. At the same time, platforms should strengthen their core competitiveness as public discussion spaces, and avoid the information isolation risk that plagues vertical communities.

Combining the format changes and new communication characteristics of this World Cup, this article summarizes new developments in the event marketing industry, and provides new research samples and observation directions for researchers in sports marketing and social commerce.

1. New industry developments: Driven by the World Cup’s expanded format and shifting audience demographics, social discussion has become an equally important content core alongside match broadcasts. Three fundamental shifts have reshaped event marketing: from brand-centric grand narratives to meme-driven interaction, from single-point athlete endorsement to full-funnel social operations, and from pure advertising exposure to long-term retention through public-private domain integration.

2. New industry challenges: The algorithm-recommended content ecosystem has created severe information silos that limit cross-circle dissemination of brand messaging. The communication effectiveness of traditional display ads and official sponsorships has dropped sharply, leaving brands in urgent need of entirely new methodological support.

3. Research value of a new business model: The full-funnel managed marketing model launched by open public social platforms, built on a complete "niche to public domain back to niche" ecosystem closed loop, effectively solves brand challenges of cross-circle growth and traffic retention. This is a new business model emerging in the sports marketing space that carries high research value.